The Warehouse
by CritterKeeper
Summary: Sang's chatroom improv, and what happens next....


Late one night, in the #InvisibleMan chatroom, a lady known as SangSilvereyes (author of the award-winning "Points of View") began writing an improvised scene, which has since become known as 'Sang's warehouse smut' among I-maniacs far and near. I was lucky enough to be present that night. It wasn't until a couple of nights later that I realized my twisted little brain had figured out what was happening to Darien, and then followed the scene forward, with me having little to say about it. I mentioned the continuation to Sang, and she encouraged me to write it up, giving her permission for me to include her original improv when posting it.  
  
With two different authors, written under completely different circumstances, be warned that the mood is not very consistent. The viewpoint, in my part, switches from strictly Darien to mostly the Keeper and Hobbes; there's just no way to sustain the original intensity over a longer story. But I think I like it. And my brain insists this is what happened, so who am I to argue?  
  
  
Part One: The Original Warehouse Improv  
by SangSilvereyes  
  
Darien leaned against the wall of the warehouse. Breathing out he made the wall cold and his whole body rubbed against it in sensuous delight. He could not believe the sweetness of it -- the rough texture of the wall and the bite of its icy sheen on his hot skin.  
  
He prayed for rescue -- but not just yet.... He could feel the muscles of his stomach tense and contract, pulling inward as if to shield some inner tenderness, and his breath shortened into little pants of tension. He rubbed his face against the wall and even the taste of the damp plaster did not repulse him. It was as if every sensation was a delight.  
  
His scalp tingled as if hands were lightly running through his hair -- or the breath of a lover was stirring at the back of his neck. The bite of the handcuffs made an erotic thrill run up his arms -- he should be distressed to be naked but he was glad, so glad. He loved the feel of the warm air and even the trickles of sweat as they traced paths down his chest and thighs.  
  
Smooth and velvet was the sensation of his eye lids closing over his dry eyes. How long had he been staring without blinking?  
  
There was an ache -- strong, forceful, like a powerful hand clasping the back of his neck; his memory called it pain, but his reality called it something else... something domineering and vaguely delicious, an illicit thrill forcing him to his knees. Lightening splashed at the back of his head and he gasped loud and wantonly. It was wordless but the meaning was "take me!" and the forceful presense of the gland washed over him with its power, pushing away his doubts and shielding him in certainty.  
  
He tilted his head back and breathed in the scent of his own arrousal. If they came to kill him now, he'd greet them smiling.  
  
Hobbes was right. It was a gift -- to let go and fall into the arms of his inner savior. His breath dragged in and out -- raw and timeless. He swayed with it and sobbed with waiting. He was still here... still in the moment -- still tainted with the pains of self and the longing to be free of it.  
  
Wide and bleak was the light that poured in from the doors. He opened his eyes and saw Hobbes rushing forward, sweeping off his jacket and reaching out to wrap him in its stolen warmth....  
  
  
  
Part Two: continued by CritterKeeper  
  
  
The smooth lining of the jacket covered him from waist to mid-thigh, and he gasped at the feel of it against his most sensitive skin. A low, animal moan escaped his lips, alarming Hobbes.  
  
"Darien, what is it? What's wrong?"  
  
"They...they gave me...something...." He could barely get the words out. His eyes rolled towards his arm, where a fresh bruise marked the site of the injection. He was dimly aware of an ache there, one more sensation piled on top of so many others.  
  
Hobbes touched his arm there, and Darien moaned again. His partner jerked his hand back as if burned. It was a struggle to keep the nature of his moans hidden. He could handle Hobbes thinking he was in pain, but the truth...he doubted anyone would understand.  
  
"Claire!" Hobbes screamed, "Get in here, now!" His rough voice echoed in Darien's head like the sweetest music.  
  
She must have been just outside the door, waiting for his all-clear. He could hear her steps from across the warehouse, the click of her heels and the faint echo an instant later from the distant walls, the rasp of her breathing.  
  
Hobbes reached up to the handcuffs, careful not to touch Darien. In a moment he had the first one loose, and Darien's arm fell loosely to his side. The sensation of his own skin on skin nearly sent him over the edge. So smoothe, so warm, so alive! He whimpered with the effort of holding back. Not now. Not with Hobbes and Claire here!  
  
Hobbes stepped around him carefully and started in on the other cuff. Claire reached them, calling out to Darien, moving to touch him, but Hobbes warned her off.  
  
"Don't touch him! He's reacting to the slightest touch. They gave him some sort of drug." As if to demonstrate, the cuff came loose, and although Hobbes lowered his arm as gently as he could, Darien shouted an inarticulate cry. He could feel Hobbes' hand on his wrist sending sparks through his arm and straight to his chest, his gland, his groin. His body fell forward limply and the dirty cement floor felt so wonderful he stayed there panting, his abdomen creased in on itself with another touch of skin-on-skin.  
  
"Darien, is it bad?" Claire asked, knowing the question was inadequate. "I have to know, so I can tell what they gave you. What do you feel, Darien?"  
  
"Everything!" he gasped. The vibration of his voicebox nearly sent him into another ecstasy of sensation. "So intense...overwhelming...." He collapsed with another moan.  
  
Claire's hand hovered just above his shoulder, torn between the desire to help and the fear of hurting. She turned to Hobbes, asking, "How are we going to him back to the lab to help him if we can't touch him?"  
  
"Can't you give him something?" Hobbes demanded, just as torn.  
  
"I don't know what's safe!" Her fingers raked through her hair, shoving it out of her eyes and behind her ears. "If I give him something, it could make things worse."  
  
"Worse than this?" The sound of their voices made him twitch, setting off all sorts of sensations. An animal keening rose in his throat. He didn't want to give in to it in front of his friends. All the control he had learned, fighting the gland, clamped down on the waves of pleasure coursing through him. But somehow, he knew it wouldn't be enough. Not for long.  
  
He lost track of the conversation, feeling only the texture of their voices and the touch of air currents as they moved and breathed. He tried to hold still, but every gasp, every twitch was overwhelmingly sweet.  
  
The fight was taken away from him as the ache in the back of his head blossomed forth into an explosion of sensation. His hand flew to his head and he rolled onto his back, but even these movements were nothing compared to the euphoria of the agony that engulfed him. A wordless scream tore through the warehouse as it tore through his throat. His body convulsed in release until everything else was crowded out.  
  
  
***  
  
  
"My God," Claire murmured, studying the readings she was getting in amazement. "I didn't think it was possible. It's diabolical...."  
  
"You figured it out, Keep?" Hobbes tore himself away from the observation window, from the sight of his partner's body, sweating and twitching despite the sedatives pumped into him. "You know what's wrong with him?"  
  
"To start, the drug is causing hyperesthesia."  
  
"What the hell's that mean?"  
  
"Well, anesthesia, like for surgery, is reducing sensations to nothing, eliminating them. Hyperesthesia means that sensations are amplified. Everything feels stronger, more powerful, more sensitive. A pinprick is like a stab wound. But that's not the worst part."  
  
She pointed to the color display of the PET scanner, which highlighted the areas of the brain which were active at any given time.  
  
"The drug they gave him is stimulating some parts of the brain disproportionately to others. Pain sensation is being subsumed and everything is being channeled, amplified, into the pleasure centers of the brain."  
  
"The *what* centers?" Hobbes remembered nervously the way Darien had sounded in the warehouse, in the car on the way back, in the lab when they sedated him.  
  
"People started experimenting with the different parts of the brain in the '60s," Claire explained. "They discovered that stimulating different parts of the brain produced different effects -- pain, memories, sexual arousal, anything you can think of. There's an experiment, still famous after all this time." She turned back to the window to watch Fawkes through the glass. "The researcher set up an electrode so that it stimulated the pleasure centers in a rat's brain, and a lever in its cage that would fire off the electrode. There was another lever that would release food pellets, and the rat could go from one to the other as it chose."  
  
She looked at Hobbes with haunted eyes. "The rats would hit the first level almost constantly, until they dropped from starvation. They didn't care about anything else, except getting more of that stimulation."  
  
She outlined a brightly lit area of Fawkes' brain. "That's the pleasure center in human beings."  
  
"Aw, crap." Hobbes intoned, turning back to watch his friend.  
  
"Whatever it is seems to be interacting with the quicksilver in Darien's bloodstream, intensifying and prolonging the effect far beyond what it would be in a normal person. I don't know whether they knew that would happen or not. Either way, the hyperstimulation is overwhelming his systems, exhausting his reserves. He...can't last long at this rate."  
  
"Can't you knock him out?"  
  
"This is as knocked out as I can get him without risking his life!"  
  
"How long until this stuff wears off?"  
  
"If his gland continues to secrete quicksilver, it could last indefinitely. But Darien won't. But maybe..." She trailed off, then ran to the refrigerator where her supply of counteragent was stored. "I can't counter the drug, but I can counter the quicksilver it's interacting with!" She was drawing up a dose of the electric blue fluid as fast as she could. "I'll need your help with him."  
  
"Uh...my help?" He glanced nervously at his moaning colleague  
  
"Come *on*, Bobby, this is no time for one of your hang-ups! Your partner needs you!"  
  
He shook off his reluctance and accompanied her into the lab. He gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the ecstatic gasp Darien gave as he touched his wrist, held it still so the Keeper could get a clean shot at his veins. The pain of the needle piercing his skin would be magnified manyfold, and they were prepared for a reaction.  
  
Neither of them was prepared for just how strong a reaction they got. He tolerated the needle as well as could be expected and they'd started to relax. Claire had barely begun to slide the plunger home when Darien screamed, a terrible, full-voiced scream of absolute agony. His arm ripped out of their grasp, and he curled around it, whimpering with the pain.  
  
"Crap crap crap!" He gasped. "My whole arm...feels like it's...on fire...."  
  
Claire checked the syringe. The plunger had barely moved. Hardly any counteragent had gone into his bloodstream. She checked his tattoo. Only one green segment remained.  
  
"Any other ideas, Keep?" Hobbes asked.  
  
"Supportive care?" she said uncertainly. She gestured at the sheen of sweat coating Darien's trembling back. "If he isn't dehydrated yet, he will be soon. Maybe fluids will help him flush the drug out of his system faster." She turned to a drawer and started pulling out equipment -- IV catheter, heparinized saline, lactated Ringer's solution, IV line. "We'll have to place a catheter in his arm, but it seemed to be the counteragent he was reacting to more than the needle. Once the fluids are started, maybe I'll be able to piggy-back counteragent in a dilute form...."  
  
  
***  
  
  
Darien lay, restrained, in the chair in the Keep where he usually received his injections. He was sedated, his breathing shallow. An IV line ran into one arm, replacing the fluids lost in the sheen of sweat still coating him. The drugs cut his awareness of the room, of his friends' race to find a way to help him, but nothing could stop the flood of sensation. It was beyond pleasure now, so good it hurt. He was exhausted but he couldn't stop it, and he knew on some level that was a bad thing, but he didn't *want* it to stop.  
  
He twisted his wrists within the cuffs, feeling the soft cloth sliding against his skin. He twisted his neck, rubbing his cheek against the padded headrest. He could feel another attack building at the base of his skull and knew that release would come with it.  
  
Vague awareness of Claire, standing so close, her voice like the sweetest birdsong, or the low moaning of whales in the sea. There was some meaning to the words, but he couldn't follow them, didn't want to, only wanted to keep drifting, experiencing, feeling.  
  
Pain! He jerked against the restraints, howling. This pain wasn't sweet, it wasn't good, and it was dragging him away from that fulfillment. He twisted, stuggling to make it stop. He remembered what words were, and begged her to stop it.  
  
The fire in his arm eased but it didn't stop. It pulled him in one direction and the sensations from the gland pulled in another. He was caught on the crest, so close to fulfillment yet held back from it. It was like being on the brink of orgasm, held there, unable to back off or to climax and end it. He sobbed, could feel salty tears caressing his cheeks, and repeated, over and over, his plea that they stop it.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Claire looked over the latest test results, Bobby hovering over her shoulder trying to see what they said even though he didn't understand any of it.  
  
"So, is it working?"  
  
"Sort of. We're titrating basal secretion, anyway."  
  
"In English this time?"  
  
"Sorry. The gland is constantly secreting low levels of quicksilver. That's why Darien goes quicksilver mad after six days even if he doesn't use the gland. I can get enough counteragent into him to keep up with it, but he can't tolerate a fast enough infusion to actually bring down the levels of quicksilver in his blood. He isn't getting any closer to madness, but he isn't getting any further from it, either."  
  
"So we're treading water?"  
  
"Which is better than drowning."  
  
"No criticism intended, Keep. I know you're working on it."  
  
Claire sighed, rubbing her eyes. How long had it been since she'd slept?  
  
"Explain to me again, why can't you just knock him out?"  
  
"The doses I've been giving him should have, but the drug is counteracting part of their effect. Part, but not all. Sedatives are still depressing his respiration. If I give him anything stronger, he could stop breathing completely."  
  
"He could die."  
  
"Exactly. Which is where he's headed anyway, if we can't do something. He's burning up all his reserves. Not to mention the psychological damage."  
  
She paced back over to Darien, placing the back of her hand against his forehead as gently as she could. His groan of ecstacy still made her uncomfortable, but she was almost used to it at this point.  
  
"Claire?" he moaned. "Please stop it....it hurts....take it out...."  
  
"I can't, Darien, you know I can't."  
  
"It's pulling me....back....from the edge...." He jerked at his restrained arm, trying futilely to dislodge the IV. "I can't....stay....like this.... Let me go....let me feel...it all...."  
  
She turned away with tears in her eyes.  
  
"Bobby, I think I'm going to have to risk it."  
  
"Risk what? Taking him off? Or more drugs?"  
  
"Heavier sedation, of course. I've ordered a respirator brought down. I've got the equipment for gas anesthesia, that's safest. We used sevoflurane when I installed the monitor and he had no problems. With the respirator keeping him breathing, I may be able to get enough counteragent into him to stop this damned interaction between it and the drug."  
  
"You think this is his best chance?"  
  
"Right now, I'm afraid it's the only chance I can give him."  
  
"Then let's do it! I want my partner back."  
  
  
***  
  
Hobbes paced the room, watching the lifeless form of his partner. The machine pumped his chest up and down regularly, but all other sign of life had faded away as the Keeper sank him deep into anesthesia. She wasn't looking happy, but there was no sign of any new crisis yet.  
  
"Okay," she told him nervously, "I think we're ready."  
  
"Let's do it." Hobbes knew his voice betrayed just as much nerves as hers did. He didn't care. This was his partner.  
  
She'd fitted a full dose of counteragent into a syringe pump so that she could precisely control the amount going into Darien's system. She turned to it now, starting a very slow infusion, watching his reactions. There was hardly a blip on the monitors.  
  
"So far, so good...."  
  
She slowly increased the rate of the infusion. He lay, limp, pale, cool to the touch. Another notch up. And another. The syringe was visibly moving now, just barely. His heart rate remained slow, the electrical pattern on the EKG normal. Claire allowed herself a small smile.  
  
"I think we may have it, Bobby!"  
  
An alarm went off on one of the monitors, a slow, steady, innocent-sounding beep. Hobbes nearly jumped through the roof, and Claire forced herself to remain calm, to move unhurriedly, knowing that her attitude would calm him more than any words.  
  
"What is it? What's wrong?"  
  
"The carbon dioxide he's exhaling has gone up a little, that's all. The alarm is set to notify me if anything changes." She moved back over to Darien's bedside, touched a hand to his forehead. She pressed on his jaw to open his mouth, pursing her lips at the stiffness she felt.  
  
"Damn," she whispered softly. She turned to the drug cabinet and began sorting through the vials. "Where the hell did I put the dantrolene?"  
  
"Keep, is there a problem here?" The beep was getting higher in pitch.  
  
"Maybe. It could be nothing, or it could be the first signs of malignant hyperthermia."  
  
"And that's bad?" Hobbes wished he didn't have to ask for a translation every few minutes.  
  
"Very bad. It's a rare complication in anesthesia, makes the body temperature go sky-high. Normally, the first step in dealing with it is to turn off the anesthetic. But we're past the point where we could pull back and start over with another agent. I don't think Darien has the time for that." She was shaking a vial to mix the contents as she walked rapidly back to the syringe full of counteragent. She began disconnecting it from the pump. "I'll have to give the whole dose of counteragent as fast as I can, and hope....that it works out. Then turn off the gas and start treatment for the hyperthermia."  
  
Hobbes had never seen the cool, collected Keeper looking so harried, or so worried. "What can I do?"  
  
Another monitor began beeping insistently. Darien's body temperature was going up, fast.  
  
"There's trays of ice in the freezer there. Start breaking them out and making ice packs. We'll have to cool him off as fast as we can, before he suffers permanent brain damage."  
  
The syringe now free of the mechanism that gave a slow, steady infusion, Claire gripped the barrel in one hand, the plunger in the other, said a silent prayer, and pushed, hard and fast.  
  
Hobbes almost dropped the ice tray he was holding as a strangled gasp came from his partner. The ventilator prevented him from crying out, but Darien was thrashing on the table, jerking against the restraints they'd left in place while inducing anesthesia. Half the monitors in the room were going off now. He fought the urge to dash to his friend's side, but Claire had given him a job to do, and he doggedly pursued it. "Hang in there, partner!" he called out over his shoulder.  
  
Darien's face was a mask of agony. His vocal cords battered against the tube in his throat, trying to produce a blood-curdling scream. Finally, the injection finished, he sank back against the chair, lifeless. The respirator took over again.  
  
As soon as Claire finished giving the counteragent, amazed that it had brought Darien so quickly out of such heavy anesthesia, she raced to cut off the gas flow and inject the dantrolene she'd just reconstituted. His body temperature was already at dangerous levels, his muscles rigid. She didn't think he was conscious, but couldn't be sure, with such a crazy mix of drugs in his system. Hobbes appeared at her side with the first of the ice packs, and they began placing them around Darien. She squirted isopropyl alcohol across his bare chest to add a little evaporative cooling. Then she took a moment to check his tattoo.  
  
The snake was all green. No quicksilver buildup left in his bloodstream.  
  
She only hoped that was enough. Without quicksilver to bind it and keep it in his system, Darien's body still had to rid itself of the drug just like a normal person would. If that took too long, basal secretion of quicksilver would start to build again and they'd be right back where they started from. She pulled a bag of IV fluids out of the refrigerator and hooked it up to his line, to cool him further and to help flush out the remaining chemicals.  
  
Slowly, the warning indicators began to creep back to normal. The alarms quieted, one by one. Darien's expired carbon dioxide went back to expected range, his muscles relaxed, his body temperature nosed back towards safe levels. It seemed to take forever. Finally, the last alarm was silent. They'd done it. Darien would live.  
  
Claire, leaning against the edge of the chair, sank forward in relief. After a moment, she realized her forehead was resting against Darien's bare chest. She stayed there a moment to appreciate its steady rise and fall, his scent filling her nostrils, before forcing herself back into action. She drew a blood sample and began her tests, praying the results would be good.   
  
"I think we did it," she announced several minutes later. "I think he's going to be okay. He'll need further treatment, and we'll have to figure out whether the reaction to anesthesia was due to the drug or whether it'll be a problem in the future, but I don't think there's any permanent damage."  
  
"Thank God," Hobbes murmured. He was watching over his partner as if sheer willpower could prevent any further disasters. His eyes strayed to the tattoo, and he asked the Keeper, his tone studiously casual, "What about the gland? Is it okay?"  
  
Claire gave herself a mental shake and reached for another slide. "I'm checking that now," she told Hobbes. Of course, that was important, for Darien's sake as well as the Agency's. Damage to the gland could be just as fatal to Darien, in more ways than one.  
  
Hobbes gave a little mental cheer that the Keeper had thought about her patient first and her experiment second. He had to wonder, sometimes, which was more important to her; now he knew.  
  
  
***  
  
  
He woke slowly, not even sure if he was awake. It felt like he was wrapped in cotton, like his ears were stuffed up, like his tongue was dried out and useless.  
  
He could barely feel. Anything.  
  
Fingers twitching, he rubbed them against the surface beneath, and was only aware of a vague softness, dull and uninteresting. His whole body ached, a distant, slightly uncomfortable feeling, but nothing compared to the agony he'd been through.  
  
A voice, flat, toneless.  
  
He opened his eyes. Everything looked dim and lifeless. Like seeing in black and white, after experiencing rich colors and hues. Nothing was missing, nothing was wrong with his vision, except that it was just *there*, with no impact, no response. No joy.  
  
"Welcome back, Darien." Was he back? He couldn't be sure. "How are you feeling?"  
  
"Empty." His own voice was just as flat, just as distant. "Numb. Like I can't feel anything anymore."  
  
Claire bit her lip. She touched his forehead, his cheek, looked into his eyes. There was no intensity, no rush. Her hand was just there.  
  
She tugged his earlobe, out of his line of sight. "Did you feel that?"  
  
"Yes. No. Not like it was."  
  
She went through a whole neurologic workup. He could identify sensations, there didn't seem to be any loss of sensitivity compared to normal. She knew, then, what the problem was.  
  
"Darien, you're back to normal. It just feels different compared to what you were going through."  
  
"Normal?" He turned his face away from her, tears unnoticed at the corners of his eyes. "You mean it's always going to be like this?"  
  
"Not always. You'll adjust. Your system's been overloaded, some kind of backlash is to be expected. It's mostly a, uh, psychological...dependency...."  
  
"Great," he muttered. "Another one." It was a pale shadow of his usual anger and frustration, but at least it was some sign of life. "Claire...." He licked his lips, then hesitantly asked, "who were they? Why did they do this?"  
  
"We still don't know, Darien. Could be Chrysalis, Arnaud, the Chinese, could be anyone. We'll have to debrief you when you're up to it, try to find some clues...." she trailed off.  
  
Darien was running his hands across the surface of the chair beneath him, fingering the cloth of his shirt, trailing his fingertips gently through the hair on his forearms. Trying to recapture some sort, any sort of sensation. He realized guiltily that the Keeper was watching him, that he'd barely heard any of what she'd said. Those weren't really the questions he wanted to ask.  
  
The real question wasn't who did it, or why. How they did it might come closer to the heart of the matter. Nagging at his brain, too painful a hope to even consider, was the thought that he just couldn't let go of.  
  
Would it happen again? Could he bear the thought of it not happening again? Could he survive it if it did, and did he care?  
  
He didn't ask himself what he'd do to recapture that feeling. What they could get him to do, in exchange for *feeling* again. It wasn't that he was afraid of the answer. It just didn't seem very important. Nothing else did.  
  
The Keeper, sensing his distraction, patted him on the shoulder, so far removed he was barely aware of it, and muttered something about letting him rest. Her absence registered on his consciousness little more than her presence had.  
  
He didn't hear her pick up the phone at the other end of the lab, dial a few quick numbers, and begin making her report. He didn't hear the worried tone in her voice, or see her watching him from across the room.  
  
"No, physically, he's fine...it's fine, too...but I'm afraid we may have a very serious problem on our hands...."  
  
All she could picture, watching his hands move, seeing the frustration in his eyes, was the image of a rat, desperately rattling a disconnected lever.  
  
  
  
  



End file.
